Client account managing arrangement on an online gaming system

ABSTRACT

A client account managing arrangement on an online gaming system includes a game server system ( 20 ) having at least one game logic (G 1,  G 2 ) managing clients (P 1 -P 5 ) participating in at least one game session (GAME 1,  GAME 2 ). Each client has a permanent account (A 1 -A 5 ) on an accounting system ( 24 ). Proxies (PROXY 1,  PROXY 2,  PROXY 3 A, PROXY 3 B, PROXY 4,  PROXY 5 ), one for each client/game session combination, are connected to the respective game logics. An asynchronous communication server system ( 22 ) is connected to the proxies. The accounting system ( 24 ) is connected to the asynchronous communication server system and is configured to i) create a temporary reservation account (T 1,  T 2,  T 3 A, T 3 B, T 4,  T 5 ) for each client/game session combination, ii) transfer money from the permanent accounts to the respective temporary reservation accounts as clients start to participate in game sessions, iii) update the temporary reservation accounts during ongoing game sessions, iv) transfer remaining money from the temporary reservation accounts to the respective permanent accounts as clients end their participation in game sessions, v) closing the temporary reservation accounts for each ended client/game session combination.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates generally to online gaming systems, andespecially to monetary transaction handling on such systems.

BACKGROUND

During an ongoing online gaming session, for example a poker game, therequirements on handling of the monetary transactions towards the(backend) accounting system are rather severe. The requirements onconsistency, availability and latency towards the accounting systemshould be so high that the gaming session is able to provide acontinuous, pleasant and real time experience for the client (end user,player). If the game logic has to wait for all the transactions to gothrough at the end of a round or session, and to make sure that alltransactions are stored in the backend system before continuing with thenext round or session, the clients will experience a lot of waitingtime. For systems with millions of ongoing sessions this meanslimitations on performance and sometimes service degradation. If thegame logic and the accounting system are geographically distanced fromeach other, for example if the game logic is installed in North Americaand the accounting system in Europe, the latency and networkdisturbances will also be an important issue.

SUMMARY

An object of the present invention is an improved client accountmanaging arrangement on an online gaming system.

This object is achieved in accordance with the attached claims.

Briefly, this client account managing arrangement (or system) on anonline gaming system includes a game server system having at least onegame logic managing clients participating in at least one game session,each client having a permanent account on an accounting system. Proxies,one for each client/game session combination, are connected to therespective game logic. An asynchronous communication server system isconnected to the proxies. The accounting system is connected to theasynchronous communication server system and is configured to:

-   -   1) create a temporary reservation account for each client/game        session combination,    -   2) transfer money from the permanent accounts to the respective        temporary reservation accounts as clients start to participate        in game sessions,    -   3) update the temporary reservation accounts during ongoing game        sessions,    -   4) transfer remaining money from the temporary reservation        accounts to the respective permanent accounts as clients end        their participation in game sessions,    -   5) close the temporary reservation account for each ended        client/game session combination.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention, together with further objects and advantages thereof, maybest be understood by making reference to the following descriptiontaken together with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a prior art gaming system in a firstscenario;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a gaming system including an embodiment ofthe client account managing arrangement in accordance with the presentinvention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a prior art gaming system in a secondscenario; and

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a gaming system including an embodiment ofthe client account managing arrangement in accordance with the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the figures of the following description connections betweendifferent entities, such as clients and servers, servers and otherservers, etc will be illustrated as separate logical connections tofacilitate associations between ingoing signal to and outgoing signalsfrom such entities. However, in reality the actual connections may bemultiplexed on fewer inputs and outputs.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a prior art gaming system in a firstscenario. In this first scenario a number of clients (players) P1, P2,P3 are connected to the game logic G of a game server system 10 over theinternet. The game logic manages the interactive game in which theclients participate, for example poker. The game logic reacts on mouseclicks and commands keyed in by the clients and updates the screens seenby the clients accordingly. The game logic is also connected to abackend including an accounting system 10 with accounts A1, A2, A3associated with the corresponding clients P1, P2, P3. The accountingsystem is typically geographically separated from the game server systemand the connection is implemented over the internet. The accounts haveto be updated at the end of a round or session. If this update is to bereliable, the game logic has to wait for all the transactions to gothrough at the end of a round or session, and to make sure that alltransactions are stored in the accounts before it can proceed with thenext round or session. This implies that the clients will experienceundesirable waiting times. For systems with hundreds of thousands ormillions of ongoing sessions this will result in limitations onperformance and sometimes service degradation.

Since the accounting system may also need to access the accounts, forexample for billing purposes or for collecting data for statistics,accounts may be locked when the game logic intends to perform an update,which may increase waiting times.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a gaming system including an embodiment ofthe client account managing arrangement in accordance with the presentinvention. The scenario is the same as in FIG. 1 with clients P1, P2, P3having accounts A1, A2, A3 participating in a game on game logic G.However, according to this embodiment of the present invention a gameserver system 20 includes, in addition to the game logic G, a number ofproxies PROXY1, PROXY2, PROXY3, each associated with a correspondingclient P1, P2, P3. These proxies are connected between the game logic Gand an asynchronous communication server system 22. Through theasynchronous communication server system 22 the proxies PROXY1, PROXY2,PROXY3 are connected to temporary reservation accounts T1, T2, T3associated with the respective clients P1, P2, P3. The temporaryreservation accounts T1, T2, T3 are in turn connected to permanentaccounts A1, A2, A3.

The arrangement in FIG. 2 operates as follows: When a client, forexample P1, enters a game session managed by game logic G, theaccounting system 24 creates a temporary reservation account T1. It thentransfers an amount of money, for example 30

, from the permanent account A1 to the temporary reservation account T1.As long as client P1 participates in the game, game logic G does notcommunicate with the permanent account A1, but rather with the temporaryreservation account T1 over the proxy PROXY1 and the asynchronouscommunication server system 22 (including one or several asynchronouscommunication servers). In this way the temporary reservation account T1is updated during the progress of the game (if the temporary reservationaccount T1 is emptied during the game, another reservation from thepermanent account A1 may be triggered; this can be handled by theaccounting system without involving the game logic). When client P1leaves the game session, the accounting system 24 transfers the moneyremaining in the temporary reservation account T1 to the permanentaccount A1. Thereafter it closes (or removes, destroys) the temporaryreservation account T1. The other clients are handled similarly.

The purpose of the proxies and corresponding temporary reservationaccounts is to give each game (there may be several as will be discussedbelow with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4) its own account context. In thisway the communication towards the client's permanent account is reducedto reserving money to a temporary reservation account and flushing itback when the reservation account is closed (when the client leaves thegame session). Thus, the combination of proxies with temporaryreservation accounts essentially decouples the permanent accounts fromthe game logic, thereby making them more accessible for other duties ofthe backend accounting system.

The purpose of the asynchronous communication server system is to ensurethat transactions made to the proxies are sent to and reach thetemporary reservation accounts without involving the game logic. Thus,the middle layer formed by the asynchronous communication server systemessentially decouples the flow of the game from the temporaryreservation accounts, thereby enabling the game logic to focus itsresources on improving the game flow perceived by the clients.

By combining the features described in the previous two paragraphs, oneobtains an online gaming system in which the game logic is essentiallydecoupled from the accounting system.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a prior art gaming system in a secondscenario. In this scenario clients P1, P2, P3 participate in a firstgame GAME1 on game logic G1, and clients P3, P4, P5 participate in asecond game GAME2 on game logic G2. It should especially be noted thatclient P3 participates in both games. The games may be the same game,for example both games may be poker games, but the games may also bedifferent, for example GAME1 may be poker and GAME2 may be Black Jack.For clients P1, P2, P4, P5 the corresponding accounts A1, A2, A4, A5 arehandled by the respective game logic G1, G2 as in the first scenariodescribed with reference to FIG. 1. However, for client P3 things becomemore complicated, since account A3 will now be updated by both gamelogics G1, G2. In addition to the problems mentioned in connection withthe first scenario, this adds the further complication that during anupdate by, for example game logic G1, account A3 may be locked forupdates by game logic G2. This may increase the waiting times for thegame logics further, as compared to the first scenario. The problembecomes even worse as more clients participate in more than one game andas the number of parallel game sessions per client is increased. Inpractice it is not uncommon that a client participates in up to 10parallel game sessions.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a gaming system including an embodiment ofthe client account managing arrangement in accordance with the presentinvention. Clients P1, P2, P4, P5 are handled in the same way as in theembodiment of FIG. 2, i.e. they are each associated with an individualtemporary reservation account over corresponding proxies and theasynchronous communication server system 22. The difference is only thatclients P1, P2 and P4, P5 belong to different games associated with gamelogics G1 and G2, respectively. However, the essential difference is thearrangement for handling client P3, which in this scenario participatesin both games. In this case there is one proxy PROXY3A connected to gamelogic G1 and one proxy PROXY3B connected to game logic G2. Each proxy isover the asynchronous communication server system 22 connected to atemporary reservation account T3A and T3B, respectively. Both temporaryreservation accounts T3A, T3B are connected to the single permanentaccount A3. In general there is one proxy and a corresponding temporaryreservation account for active each client/game session combination. Anadvantage of this feature is that it eliminates the risk of finding atemporary reservation account locked due to an update performed byanother game logic, which could happen if all game sessions associatedwith a client were associated with the same temporary reservationaccount (especially if the client participates in many games at the sametime).

During an ongoing game session each client's temporary reservationaccount has a proxy that preferably resides near (within a few routerhops from) the game logic to reduce delays. In the embodiments of FIGS.2 and 4 this is accomplished by implementing the proxies directly in thegame server system 20. However, if the asynchronous communication serversystem 22 is also near the game logic (in the sense described above), analternative embodiment is to implement the proxies in this systeminstead.

The game server system 20 may be implemented on one or several gameservers (computers). One server may provide the game logic for one orseveral game sessions (GAME1, GAME2, . . .) in software.

The asynchronous communication system 22 is preferably implemented onone or several messaging servers (computers). However, in principle itis feasible to implement it directly on the game servers.

The accounting system 24 is usually geographically separated from thegame server system 20 and the asynchronous communication system 22.Although the logic of the accounting system may be deployed in multipleservers, the database including the permanent accounts should preferablybe a single instant.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and changes may be made to the present invention withoutdeparture from the scope thereof, which is defined by the appendedclaims.

1. A client account managing arrangement on an online gaming system,including: a game server system (20) having at least one game logic (G;G1, G2) managing clients (P1-P3; P1-P5) participating in at least onegame session (GAME; GAME1, GAME2), each client having a permanentaccount (A1-A3; Al-A5) on an accounting system (24); proxies(PROXY1-PROXY3; PROXY1, PROXY2, PROXY3A, PROXY3B, PROXY4, PROXY5), onefor each client/game session combination, connected to the respectivegame logic; an asynchronous communication server system (22) connectedto the proxies; said accounting system (24) being connected to theasynchronous communication server system and configured to create atemporary reservation account (T1-T3; T1, T2, T3A, T3B, T4, T5) for eachclient/game session combination, transfer money from the permanentaccounts to the respective temporary reservation accounts as clientsstart to participate in game sessions, update the temporary reservationaccounts during ongoing game sessions, transfer remaining money from thetemporary reservation accounts to the respective permanent accounts asclients end their participation in game sessions, closing the temporaryreservation account for each ended client/game session combination. 2.The arrangement of claim 1, wherein the proxies are included in the gameserver system (20).
 3. The arrangement of claim 1, wherein the proxiesare included in the asynchronous communication server system (22). 4.The arrangement of claim 1, wherein the asynchronous communicationserver system (22) is separated from the game server system (20).